The Catskill Chronicle

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY (July 6, 2014) – Earlier this year, Sullivan County announced that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) awarded a $5,000 grant to Sullivan County Public Health Services to hold a county-wide Health Summit designed to bring together community leaders and the public to take action to improve the health of its communities.

Sullivan County’s Health Rankings for the past several years, as most are aware, have been at the bottom in comparison to all other counties in NYS, in both health outcomes and health factors and unfortunately have not changed much. We know that we have serious concerns that need to continue to be addressed here in Sullivan County. Premature death due to substance abuse and preventable accidents, premature and low birth weight of infants, and chronic disease are all taking an alarming toll on our quality of life as well as on our health care expenditures which continue to climb partially due to poor health.

The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps grant – www.countyhealthrankings.org is a collaboration of RWJF and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI). The program promotes solutions that make it easier for people to be healthy in their own communities by focusing on specific factors that affect health, such as education, employment, social support and community safety.

Building a “Culture of Health” means building a society where getting healthy and staying healthy is a fundamental and guiding social value that helps define our culture and our County. Building a strong public health infrastructure involves the local health department working closely with its partners across the health care sectors, including our hospital, primary care providers, faith and family organizations, education, business, health & human service organizations, the media, and civic organizations that help communities that place a high priority on health.

The Health Summit will be held at the Sullivan County Community College on August 8, 2014 from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. The goal of the Summit is to bring partners together to drive local change, to showcase what works in other communities across the nation, what is working here in Sullivan County, and to take action to implement our Community Health Improvement Plan with evidence based initiatives to create stronger partnerships and leverage resources. Strengthening our alliances across all sectors of the community will help to create healthier places to live, learn, work, and play.

Registration is now open. Community leaders, health care providers and interested members of the public can now go on this site to register www.scrhn.org. For questions please call Susan Clark at (845) 513-2222.